


There's certain things that I adore

by Elisexyz



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 21:16:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14723729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: “She’s akid,” Skye barks, giving him another shove. “You are brainwashing her and it needs tostop.”“I’m notbrainwashinganyone,” he protests, making sure to make it sound as ridiculous as it is. The cruellest thing that he’s done to Jemma is not letting her win when they played board games, andthatis because she’s still a genius – a very small genius, but still – and he wants to be respectful of her brain – that, and he hates losing anyway.





	There's certain things that I adore

**Author's Note:**

> For the Tumblr prompt: ["Hands off!" + Biospecialist](http://heytheredeann.tumblr.com/post/174120193744/hands-off-biospecialist-please). Here we have deaged!Jemma, she had been held captive for a while and apparently they did some experimenting on her (...sorry, Jemma...) and the result is that we have a tiny Jemma running around base.

“Skye—” Grant begins, in the calmest and most amicable tone he can manage, but it doesn’t work all too well seeing how her frown deepens and she gives him a warning shove against the wall. He could probably get her off him in three moves without breaking any of her bones, but she’s been training hard, so the fight might get ugly, and he’s not looking to go back to Vault D for violating the ‘no harming the team’ clause. He really should have made Coulson add a self-defence exception to that rule.

“You know, we could be civil about this,” he tries again, resolving to let it play out, even if Skye’s arm against his neck is pretty uncomfortable. She’s not trying to suffocate him – yet –, so he can hopefully diffuse the situation without resorting to physical violence. And if he can’t, there’s always time to knock her out and make a run for it.

“Like _hell_ we can,” she hisses. “You need to stop.”

“Stop what?” he prompts, innocently, even if he’s not so stupid as to not know what she’s referring to. Everybody’s worried and/or threatening looks have been anything but subtle.

“ _Jemma_ ,” she clarifies anyway. “Stay away from her.”

“She’s the one who comes looking for _me_ ,” he points out, which is _true_. The fact that he doesn’t discourage her at all is irrelevant.

“She’s a _kid_ ,” Skye barks, giving him another shove. “You are brainwashing her and it needs to _stop_.”

“I’m not _brainwashing_ anyone,” he protests, making sure to make it sound as ridiculous as it is. The cruellest thing that he’s done to Jemma is not letting her win when they played board games, and _that_ is because she’s still a genius – a very small genius, but still – and he wants to be respectful of her brain – that, and he hates losing anyway.

Honestly, he’s pretty fucking offended that he’s spent months now working his ass off for SHIELD and they still think that they can’t trust him to be decent to a _child_. He wouldn’t harm the adult version of Jemma either, let alone the small kid that has been attached to him like a leech since when he got her out of that Hydra facility.

“It’s not my fault if I make her feel safe,” he adds, half out of pettiness, because he knows that it must _burn_ that he’s basically the only one she trusts around here, and half in the hopes that thinking of poor little Jemma suffering if he was injured or brutally murdered will make Skye get off of him. Unsurprisingly, no such luck.

“You are just taking advantage of the fact that she doesn’t _remember_ what you are,” Skye says, looking very, very disgusted by his supposed attitude.

“Yeah, well, she’ll remember it as soon as she gets back to normal, right?” he points out. “In the meantime, isn’t it easier to just humour her instead of trying to explain why you are convinced that I am the devil incarnate?”

“You _are_ the devil incarnate.”

Grant is just about to point that that’s hardly accurate, considering that he’s working with the almighty SHIELD now, but he doesn’t get a chance to.

“Hey!” Jemma screams, in that high-pitched voice that he’s still trying to get used to. “Hands off! Let him go!”

Skye is startled enough that she takes a step back from him, offering him more room to breathe and a chance to witness Jemma with a massive scowl on her face, trying to appear as threatening as she can as she marches towards them.

Skye’s expression is comically mortified. “Jemma—”

“Why were you hurting him?!” Jemma demands, without letting her finish, walking up so that she’s standing in between them and causing Skye to take a couple of steps more back, as if that could help her escape the situation she’s in.

“I—I was—” she begins, stumbling on the words, her voice thin.

Yeah, okay, that’s too pitiful even for him to witness. “We were having a disagreement,” Grant mercifully supplies. “But we’ve sorted it out, haven’t we?”

Skye looks up to him, staring for a couple of seconds as if it to contemplate whether trying to explain the truth to Jemma would work out well, but in the end she nods, slowly.

Jemma crosses her arms. “You can’t hurt people because you disagree with them,” she reprimands, using the lecturing tone that he’s used to hear from the grown-up Jemma as well. “You should apologize.”

 _Oh_ , this keeps getting better and better. Grant totally still wants to find who made the very poor decision to experiment on Jemma and tear them to pieces with his bare hands, but he can’t deny that this is enjoyable. Skye looks like she’d prefer to cut a couple of her own fingers off than apologizing to him.

“Yeah—” she says, slowly, offering him a very sweet smile that’s obviously very fake. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he grins, without bothering to mask his smugness. Skye very sensibly decides to flee the scene before Jemma can make her hug him.

“I saved you!” Jemma announces, turning towards him and looking up to him with a proud grin on her face.

“You did,” he agrees, grinning back. “Thanks.” He totally should do something to repay her for the enormous gift that she just gave him.

“This makes me a grown-up,” she adds, casually.

“Not sure that’s—”

“It does,” she interrupts, decisively. She stares silently, waiting for him to catch up on her line of thinking.

When it clicks, Grant scoffs. “You are not coming with me next time I’m on mission, Jemma.”

“Why _not_?” she protests, crossing her arms and scowling. It’s adorable. “You said it was for grown-ups!”

“It’s for very grown grown-ups,” he says. “But,” he adds, after a pause. “We could ask if they can let you play around with some science stuff in the lab, how about that?”

“Will Fitz be there?” she asks, hesitantly, her arms falling on her sides before she starts playing nervously with her hands. Fitz has been working non-stop on trying to get her back to normal, and he hasn’t been very patient with Jemma when she’s started snooping around the lab while he tried to work. Hence her worry that he might be around.

“He’s off-base,” Grant assures. “What do you say?”

Jemma stares at him thoughtfully for a few seconds. “I think I’m a very grown grown-up,” she tries again, looking resolute.

“Sorry, no missions for you,” he repeats. “So, how does the lab sound?”

Jemma exhales through her nose loudly, just to make sure that her displeasure has been stated clearly, but in the end she nods.

“Good,” he smiles, tilting his head in direction of the lab. “Let’s go.”

She immediately walks up beside him, and considering how chatty she usually is it’s very noticeable that she’s trying to hold onto her grudge in the hopes that he’ll eventually cave. It doesn’t last long, though: it’s barely a full minute when she starts talking about a book about worms that she’s been reading – _worms_ ; what the hell is so interesting about _worms_? –, her grin spreading more each time he fakes some interest in the subject or he appears happily surprised by what she’s telling him.

It’s kind of nice to be able to make someone glow like that just by giving them his attention.


End file.
